Horst Günter

Horst Günter (23 May 1913 – 7 January 2013) was a German operatic baritone and voice teacher.

Life Career as an opera singer Born in Leipzig, Günter joined the Leipziger Thomanerchor at the age of 9 and sang there as boy soprano. His first singing teacher was the then Thomaskantor Karl Straube. He referred him to the music professor Fritz Polster in Leipzig. Günter received his vocal training at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he graduated in 1938. He completed further vocal studies in Innsbruck, Bologna and finally in Berlin with the well-known contralto . Günter also studied musicology for four years. (April 1953; as Figaro in The Barber of Seville and as Papageno in The Magic Flute) and at the Edinburgh Festival (1952 as Papageno; 1956). From 1951 to 1958 he appeared regularly as a concert singer at the Bachwoche Ansbach.

Work as a vocal pedagogue Besides his activity as an opera singer Günter was active as a singing teacher, singing pedagogue and voice educator. He held several teaching positions at universities in Germany and abroad. From 1959 to 1965 he was professor at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. From 1965 to 1978 he held a professorship at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. From 1978 to 1980 he taught at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He taught at various universities in the United States, Tokyo, France, Great Britain, Sweden, and Finland. He also regularly gave master classes. Among his students was the American baritone Thomas Hampson.

Günter was co-founder of the . Günter continued his activity as a singing teacher into old age. Still in 2004 he taught at the International Opera Studio of the Zurich Opera House.

Günter died in Hamburg at age 99.

Repertoire Günter mainly sang the role of the lyrical baritone on stage, whereby he also took over parts from the field of baritone and the cavalier baritone. Among his most important stage roles were Papageno in The Magic Flute (which he sang almost 350 times), Guglielmo, Figaro, Tsar Peter I in Zar und Zimmermann, Giorgio Germont in La traviata and Marcel in La bohème. Günter rarely sang dramatic roles, recognizing the natural limits of his voice. To his few more dramatic roles belonged only Mandryka in Strauss' opera Arabella.